She said ‘Yes’! (to moving into a bus)

Two sips into my whiskey, I sat listening to Camping Kitty, but not hearing every word, not with my heart beginning to race … thump thump thump.

It was a Wednesday like any other in Calabassas, the good people coming and going on their lunch breaks. A cloudless sky was bathing the 10 Speed Cafe in sunlight while we sat on the outdoor deck; its wooden floors, high chair tables and iron door handles all so Flannel Jack. We hadn’t been talking much lately, Camping Kitty and I, so there was some apprehension when I spotted a beautiful blonde girl in Welly boots walking along the canyon boulevard that morning. She’d been out giving gratitude for all that remained in her life. But crossing paths, that was the universe conspiring again.

As we noshed on salads and cocktails, my mind raced ahead to when a typical Wednesday might mean a hundred miles, a mountain to climb, a rainy reading day inside a National Park or making love on a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes at 3 p.m. It might be a caravan of strange faces or places as familiar as childhood. It might be sitting on the side of the road with a broken down bus.

Deciding to buy a bus and cross the country, traveling and living a deliberate life, had given me the confidence (and relief) only felt when I listen to that little voice within and follow the course I was meant to follow, when the wind fills the sheets and you race silently along the water as if gliding three feet above it. But this afternoon, my heart beat with unusual force as I looked across the table at Kitty, realizing those future memories were all with her. She was in mid-sentence when my heart stumbled forward and the words spilled out of me:

“Kitty, will you come with me?”

We’d have to leave our beloved cabins in the canyon behind, sell all our possessions that we can’t take with us and rely on each other as we travel the continent for as long as we like, wherever we want, whenever inspiration sparks.

She didn’t say anything … the tears in her eyes were answer enough. Two wild hearts began beating as one.

“She said ‘yes'” I stood and yelled across the restaurant. “We’re moving into a bus!”